


(I Think You Should Start) To Have An Open Heart

by storyteller0311



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 14:50:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8450581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyteller0311/pseuds/storyteller0311
Summary: “You work so hard to push it all down. You keep your heart, you keep your open heart hidden in the dark…Afraid that it’ll break apart. I think that you should start, to have an open heart.” – ‘Open Heart’ by Morgan Page (feat. Lissie)
A careless act and an unintentional admission cause Oliver to face some difficult truths. When the series of events that follow threaten everything Oliver holds dear, he makes a split second decision that changes his relationship with Felicity forever.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! Welcome to my new story. I can't give away too much in the summary or tags right now, but will add appropriate tags as the story warrants. Right now, I'm planning on this story having 10 chapters. If that changes, I'll adjust the number. I hope you enjoy!

Oliver dressed as quickly as his shaking hands would allow, trying his best to ignore the room’s other occupant.

There was no denying what he had said, no playing it off to misunderstanding or hoping that it had gotten lost in the heat of the moment. 

No. He had felt her body go completely still as the words left his mouth, watched her eyes turn cold. She had heard every syllable. How couldn’t she have? He had certainly heard what he said, even lost as he was in his own thoughts – in a fantasy that wasn’t real. He had heard  _ how he said it _ , the raw emotion, the lo – 

Oliver’s heart stuttered, his hands stilling in the middle of buckling his belt. 

His denials of the past 24 hours were all for naught. At the absolute wrong time and to the worst possible person, he had let the truth slip out. A truth that had been simmering under the surface for months. A truth he wasn’t ready to admit to himself, let alone someone else. 

What had he been  _ thinking,  _ falling into bed with her? Some vodka, a little Russian commiseration, and what? He turned right back into Ollie circa 2006? Forgot why he was in Russia? Forgot the reason she was in his life in the first place? He wished he could say he’d done it in an attempt to keep an enemy close, to charm her into having a little less contempt for him, to slow her machinations. But he couldn’t. None of that had factored in tonight.  He had ignored all the alarm bells, put blinders on. He had been careless and undeniably stupid.

And now he needed to get the hell out of there.

Oliver took a silent breath, allowing a neutral mask to fall over his face before finally turning  back towards the bed, finding its occupant typing something on her phone. The rumpled sheets around her were sickening to him now, a reminder of a bad decision that had turned into a terrible one.

“I’m sorry, I need to go,” he said, reaching to grab his coat off a nearby chair.

“Of course,” she replied without looking up, her voice embodying the chill permeating the room. “You obviously have somewhere else you need to be. As do I.” 

Without another glance, Oliver made his way to the door of his suite, pausing for a moment in the foyer to make sure he had his phone and wallet. Hearing movement from the bedroom behind him, he reached for the door to make his escape. But when he pulled it open, he was surprised to find someone blocking his exit.

Felicity stood in front of him, hand poised to knock, a look of surprise on her face.

“Hi!” she said, awkwardly waving her raised hand before letting it drop to her side.

A stab of something –panic? guilt? – rammed through him at her unexpected presence. He thought he’d be able to gather his thoughts before their rendezvous time. He was wrong. 

“Hi,” Oliver breathed out, taking a step forward in an attempt to get them both as far away from where they stood as quickly as possible. 

“You ready? We were supposed to meet 10 minutes ago,” Felicity said, taking a small step backwards but not moving far enough to let Oliver direct them anywhere.

“Yeah, let’s –”

Before he could get the entire sentence out Isabel was there beside him, pushing him out of the doorway and nearly knocking Felicity off balance as she stepped out into the hall. 

“I think she can take the night off, don’t you?” Isabel said snarkily, her eyes flitting from Oliver to Felicity, before she sauntered down the hall, her dress completely unzipped in the back. 

“Oh –”

Felicity’s soft utterance was nearly silent, but it was followed by an unmistakable look of shock that filtered across her face as she turned from watching Isabel disappear around a corner back towards Oliver. 

“Felicity –” 

When her eyes focused on his, the shock had given way to something else he could quite name. Almost a mixture of sadness and anger.

“Well, now I know what kept you,” Felicity murmured, her voice breaking him out of his thoughts. “Right now I’d love to be able to say ‘what happens in Russia, stays in Russia’ but unfortunately we don’t have that luxury.”

Confusion filled Oliver at Felicity’s words, at how upset she was. 

“Felicity, I –”

Her name died on his tongue at the look she shot him – the exact opposite of what had happened less than 20 minutes prior. 

“I need some air. I’ll meet you in the lobby. Try not to fall into bed with any other scheming bitches on your way downstairs,” she said as she wrapped her arms around herself and walked towards the elevator.

Her words poured over him like ice water, rooting him to his spot in the hall. As he watched Felicity walk away, he couldn’t shake the thought that his growing feelings for her might be the least of his worries.

* * *

_ “I think she can take the night off, don’t you?” _

Isabel’s words reverberated through Felicity’s head as she stood in the hotel courtyard. Pulling the fur hat down further over her ears, she tried to ignore the cold. She was freezing, but the last thing she wanted to do at that moment was go back into the hotel lobby. She needed a few more minutes of quiet. Even if that meant standing shivering in the 20 degree weather.

She had let herself cry for exactly five minutes in lobby bathroom – hot, angry tears that barely scratched the surface of what she was feeling. Hurt. Humiliation. Anger. 

She wanted to be able to say that she wasn’t jealous, wasn’t hurt by Oliver’s actions. But that would be a lie. Somewhere between him showing up in her office with a bullet-ridden laptop and him plucking her off a landmine on Lian Yu, she’d fallen for him. Hard. 

The realization of her growing feelings used to send a stab of fear through her before making butterflies erupt in her stomach, before filling her with a dream of  _ maybes  _ and  _ somedays _ . But tonight...tonight her feelings felt like a weight around her shoulders. 

But that wasn’t all of it. Yes. She was jealous. But she was also angry. They had spent so much time, so much energy fighting to keep QC out of Isabel’s hands, to keep her from burning down Oliver’s family’s legacy in one fell swoop. And what did he do? He fell right into bed with her. 

Watching Isabel walk out of that hotel room half dressed had been like a punch in the gut. 

She wanted to scream at Oliver. Shake him and ask him just  _ what was wrong with him _ . 

He was so infuriating. So  _ careless. _

She knew he didn’t feel the same way about her, and deep down it hurt. But if he was going to sleep with anyone, why did it have to be Isabel? 

Isabel who was conniving and had done and was still doing her damnedest to steal his company out from under him. Isabel who his own mother had warned him not to trust. Isabel who went out of her way to sneer and make comments. Isabel who looked at her like she was a piece of dirt on her shoe.

It made absolutely no sense.

And yet, she almost felt guilty over her reaction. Oliver might be infuriating and careless and sometimes just an insufferable  _ ass _ , but she was at fault too. She’d done a pretty good job of hiding just how awful Isabel was when Oliver wasn’t around, the snide comments about her clothes, her skills, her worth… And she’d hidden the true extent of  how badly the whispers and the stares and the assumptions of QC’s employees affected her.

Felicity wanted to not be upset, to not let Isabel and her venom get under her skin. But she couldn’t help it. Her skin was only so thick. She could only take so much.

And tonight...tonight was just too much.

“Hey. There you are. Felicity, I…”

Even though his words were spoken quietly, Felicity still jumped as Oliver appeared next to her.  

Glancing briefly at him in the courtyard’s dim light, she could see the wary expression on his face, unsure of what to say after her harsh words upstairs. 

“Oliver...let’s not do this right now,” Felicity responded, preventing him from saying any more. She knew he’d want to talk, to say he was sorry – even if he didn’t know what for. But right now she didn’t want to talk. She was afraid of what she might say if they did. Instead, she just wanted to do what they had come there to do – rescue Lyla – and then she wanted to go home where she could avail herself of the quart of mint chocolate chip ice cream in her freezer.

“You’re upset,” Oliver said, coming to face her directly.

“Oliver. You should know by now that when I say I need some air it means I don’t want to talk. Please,” she said quietly. “Is Anatoly here yet?”  she asked, changing the subject.

Oliver paused for a long beat of silence, his brows drawing together with a look that almost made Felicity regret giving him the cold shoulder. 

“Oh. Uh, yeah,” he said, pulling his phone out of his coat pocket to show her a text message from Anatoly. “He sent me the rendezvous coordinates. He has the truck.”

“Good,” she said, gesturing for him to lead the way. “Let’s go.”  

Thirty five minutes later, Felicity sat in the back seat of the oversized police truck watching Anatoly bargain with a prison guard. Her interaction with him had been limited, particularly since Oliver had sent her to the hotel with Isabel – one more encounter with the icy CEO that she’d prefer to forget – instead of allowing her to accompany him and Dig to their meeting with mafia boss.  She hoped he had as much influence as Oliver claimed because she certainly didn’t want to end up in prison with Dig instead of breaking him out. That would just be the cherry on top of her evening.

Without Anatoly – and his animated chatter about the delights of Russia – in the truck, the silence was deafening. She knew Oliver was staring at her from the other side of the back seat, could feel his eyes trained on her, almost willing her to look at him. 

“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly, his voice quiet.

A pang went through Felicity’s chest, a sharp combination of sadness, frustration, and exhaustion. 

“Do you even know what you’re sorry for?” she asked softly, still not turning in his direction. “Or are you just apologizing because you know I’m upset?”

Silence briefly filled the truck once again, Oliver not immediately responding.

“You’re...angry with me. You think I made a mistake. With Isabel,” he said, pausing. “Felicity…it just kind of happened.”

She could have left it there, let them once again descend into silence, just taken his answer and moved on. But she needed to know, needed to understand why – how – it was so easy to be with  _ her  _ and not even consider...

“Why her?” she asked a little too sharply, turning in her seat to look at him. “Well – besides the whole leggy model reason. I guess I’m trying to wrap my mind around why, in the middle of this extremely important mission, you would fall into bed with that – that  _ woman _ . What were you thinking?” 

“Like I said, it just...happened, Felicity. It didn’t mean anything,” Oliver said, the confused expression he had sported earlier returning ten fold. “You’re right. It was stupid. A bad decision. But, don’t  you think you’re blowing this a little out of proportion? Sure, Isabel isn’t warm and fuzzy, but she’s not the devil incarnate.”

“Are you sure about that?” Felicity scoffed under her breath, so quietly that she barely heard herself.

“Felicity,” Oliver said, his voice laced with frustration and something else she couldn’t name. “What is this really about? I’m sorry, it was never my intention to–”

Somewhere around his repeated apology, the bubble of hurt and exhaustion that had been warring in her chest since she watched Isabel walk down the hall broke. 

“To what?” she bit out. “Take the Ollie Queen of old out for a spin? Or to conveniently forget everything we’ve done to make sure QC stayed your family’s company?”

“Two months ago I jumped out of a plane –  _ a plane _ – onto an island you refer to as hell to track you down so we could save your family’s company. And that was after weeks of doing what I could to keep tabs on Stellmoor’s plans for QC and searching to the ends of the Earth for where you had disappeared to...And you had the audacity to accuse Dig and I of not doing enough…”

“I know you have to play nice with Isabel in order to keep QC going,” she continued. “But have you forgotten what she’s here for? She doesn’t want to help you save QC. She wants to gut it. I just – have you been paying attention at all to what kind of person she is – the  _ venom _ she spews on a daily basis? Oliver, she walked out of your room tonight and basically called me a whore. And you stood there and said nothing.” 

“What?” Oliver asked, his face losing some of its color.

_ “I think she can take the night off, don’t you?” _ Felicity murmured softly, looking down at her hands. “If only that was all of it.”

“You made me your executive assistant. And I understand why you did, even if I was mad. But you’ve overlooked the implications. You’ve ignored the whispers. The comments. The stories. The accusations that I got my job on my knees, the questions of how a lowly IT girl is qualified to work for the CEO, the declarations that I’m a distraction, a plaything in short skirts…”

“Isabel is cruel…and you, you just ignore it.”  Felicity said, her throat clogged with unshed tears. 

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” she whispered, almost as much to herself as to him. 

The words hung heavily in the air of the truck, the silence stretching for what felt like an infinitely long time. 

_ I don’t know if I can do this anymore. _

Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, Felicity tried to wrap her mind around what she’d just admitted. Questioned whether she meant it or not. 

“Felicity –”

A cold burst of air from the front seat abruptly ended what Oliver might have said as Anatoly climbed back in the truck and immediately began talking, completely unaware what he was interrupting.

“In Russia, money will buy anything – this is most important lesson, my dear Felicity,” Anatoly said with a wink as he started the ignition. “But Oliver already knows this. He knows many things about this great country. Oliver,” he said, turning around in the driver’s seat, “you must take your  любимая out to see all that Moscow has to offer before going home…”

Looking out the window, Felicity let Anatoly’s chatter fade away, her thoughts returning to what she’d said right before Anatoly returned to the truck.

_ I don’t know if I can do this anymore. _

Did she mean it?

And if she did...then what?

* * *

Oliver didn’t need to look up to know it was her. He just knew.

Something  happened to him when she was nearby. It had almost since the moment he first saw her. The hairs on his arms stood up on end, the back of his neck tingled, the air changed. 

And while he didn’t need to look up, he did. 

He watched as she walked from the elevator towards her office, her eyes focused on the tablet in her hands. He watched as she paused to speak with an intern in the hall, watched as she settled in behind her desk, watched as she never once glanced in his direction.

_ Isabel walked out of your room and called me a whore...and you said nothing.  _

_ Isabel is cruel and you just ignore it. _

_ I don’t know if I can do this anymore. _

Days later, Felicity’s words to him in the back of the truck were still on repeat in his mind, accompanied with a near constant sense of dread. 

Actually, it had been 142 hours. 

142 hours since their plane had touched back down in Starling City. 142 hours since Felicity had looked at him for more than a few seconds. 142 hours since she had spoken more than a sentence at a time to him.

But, despite her last words in the truck, she was still there. 142 hours later and she hadn’t left. 

Sighing, Oliver tried to get back to the finance report in front of him, but quickly found himself looking up again, seeking her out. The thought of his life without Felicity in it was something he wasn’t sure he could live with. And if she did leave it would be all his fault. 

And he’d deserve that fault too. 

Sometimes he wasn’t sure who was worse, the immature asshole Ollie or the post-island push everyone away Oliver. Felicity was right. How easily he forgot that what he was doing didn’t exist in a vacuum. A year ago he’d been hell bent on fulfilling his father’s dying wish alone. But, now? He didn’t know how he would have ever accomplished anything without his team. And still, despite knowing that, he pushed them away.

And Isabel…

He’d been so busy denying Isabel’s insinuations to deflect from his own feelings that he’d ignored how truly cruel those comments were. And worse yet, he’d failed to recognize that he wasn’t the only one the comments were directed at.

His team, Felicity especially in this case, had done so much to protect him. And he had failed to protect them in return. 

“Are you trying to stare a hole through that glass wall?”

Dig, arm still in a sling, stood in the doorway to Oliver’s office, the look of seriousness on his face not matching the note of humor in his words. 

Oliver abruptly looked away from where Felicity sat, embarrassed to be caught. Leveling a look at Dig, he didn’t respond and instead turned his attention back to the report on his desk.  

“All right, man, what did you do?” Dig asked, coming to sit in the guest chair directly across from Oliver’s desk.

“What makes you think I did something?” Oliver asked quietly.

“Well,” Dig began, leaning forward in his seat. “Let’s start with the fact that we’ve been home from Russia for nearly a week and I haven’t heard Felicity say more than a handful of words to you at a time. Or we could discuss how you keep looking at her, watching her like you think she’s going to disappear into thin air at any moment. So, I’ll ask you again. What on earth did you do?”

Oliver leaned back in his seat and scrubbed his hands across his face.

“I screwed up,” he said quietly, not moving his hands from where they were still splayed across his face. 

“What?” Dig asked, unable to decipher Oliver’s muffled words.

“I screwed up,” Oliver said again more forcefully than necessary, finally removing his hands – and uncovering his mouth in the process. “I – I...I’ve been so blind, so stupid. And I think I may have ruined things for good.” 

“Oliver,” Dig said, sitting forward in the chair, “I don’t understand...what happened?”

“Let me ask you something,” Oliver said, interrupting Dig. “Is the gossip really that bad? About Felicity and me? Is Isabel harassing her?”

“Oliver…” Dig said warily, effectively giving Oliver all the confirmation he needed. 

“Please Dig,” Oliver begged, “please. I need to know.”

“It’s bad,” Dig confirmed, a frown growing on his face. “Has been since the moment you made her your Executive Assistant. And that’s just the gossip. Isabel...has been absolutely vile to Felicity. There isn’t an instance where they’re in the same room that Isabel doesn’t make some sort of biting comment. I don’t know how Felicity has managed.”

Even though Oliver had believed Felicity without a doubt, hearing Dig confirm it was torture. 

“Why didn’t she say something?” Oliver asked, looking down at his hands. “I would have…done something.” 

“What would you have done Oliver? Put an arrow in her?” Dig asked. “You said your days of killing are over...and Isabel Rochev doesn’t seem to be the kind of woman that is scared by idle threats.”

“For Felicity I would,” Oliver replied gravely. “Without hesitation.”

“I should have realized,” he continued, “I got so wrapped up in my own worries...my own feelings…”

“You’re in love with her,” Dig said, his voice half matter of fact, half surprised.

“I – I...yes,” Oliver replied, so quietly he almost didn’t hear himself. 

“I thought – but I worried you might just be infatuated…” Dig stammered, clearly surprised more by Oliver’s admission of his feelings than of their existence. 

_ I’m in love with her. _

Oliver let the words flood his mind, allowed their truth to sink in. 

Of course he was in love with her. He had said as much that night in Moscow, only he he had said it to the wrong woman. 

Even Anatoly...even he had seen right through him.

_ “You must take your  _ любимая _ out to see all that Moscow has to offer before going home…” _

His  любимая. His beloved.

If only he’d been wise enough to realize that before he’d possibly ruined any chance to show her just how beloved she was. 

Before he’d watched the hurt and humiliation flood her face when Isabel waltzed half-dressed out of his hotel suite.

“I slept with Isabel,” Oliver blurted out.

Oliver had witnessed a myriad of John Diggle’s reactions, but never had he seen the horrified look that crossed his face in that moment. 

“You slept with Isabel?” Dig asked slowly, as if he was trying to interpret a foreign language. 

“I was an idiot,” he replied. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Well, truthfully, I wasn’t thinking. I – it just...happened. And Felicity –”

The ding of the intercom on his desk phone interrupted  his and Dig’s conversation.

“Mr. Queen,” Felicity’s voice filtered over the intercom. 

Clearing her throat, Felicity paused over the intercom before speaking again. “Oliver. We have the meeting with the Chamber of Commerce in 30 minutes. We need to get going.”

“Thank you Felicity,” Oliver replied, looking through the glass towards where she sat. “Dig and I will be right out.”

“We’ll, uh, continue this later,” Oliver said, grimacing.

“Yes, we will,” Dig replied seriously before standing. “You can bet on that.”

* * *

Ten minutes later Oliver followed several steps behind Felicity as they made their way down from the lobby level to QC’s back entrance.

“Felicity,” Oliver called softly as she reached to open the door at the bottom of the stairwell. 

Oliver watched her hesitate, watched her consider ignoring him. But after a moment of holding his breath, she stopped and turned around, her blue eyes trained on him. 

“Yeah?” she asked quietly.

“Can – can we talk later?” he asked quickly, “tonight? At the Foundry?”

“Sure,” she replied, the ghost of a tentative smile appearing on her face. “I – I think that would be good.”

“Good,” Oliver said, a flicker of hope igniting in him, slightly calming the storm of anxiety that had been raging inside of him for the better part of a week. 

With a nod, Felicity turned back around and opened the door to the alley behind QC where Dig was waiting with the car. 

Only a few steps behind, Oliver reached the bottom of the stairs and walked into the alley to see Felicity stopped next to a dumpster fixing her shoe.

“Sorry,” she muttered, “just give me a second. I knew there was something wrong with this shoe when I put it on this morning, but I wore it anyway…”

“It’s ok–” Oliver began, his words interrupted by a deafening boom.

Before he could even fully register what was happening, Oliver felt his feet leave the ground as he was thrown backwards into the metal door he and Felicity had just exited. As he flew through the air, he could only watch helplessly as Felicity too was blasted off her feet and thrown into the side of the dumpster she had been standing next to. 

“Felicity…” he mumbled before his world went dark.


End file.
